> Yet for every AAA development house that can't prioritize making public versions of their in house development tools, there are games like Minecraft that are almost nothing but modding tools pretending to be games, and getting all sorts of interesting fans doing interesting things.

Minecraft doesn't have any significant modding support from the developer. Official 'mods' are mostly limited to textures / shaders. The real modding tools that exist for Minecraft were created by the community and largely exist because Java is comparatively easy to reverse engineer in addition to some 'off the record' style support of the mod lib authors by the game developers. The whole mod scene has gone through various phases of questionable legality and unknown future. The Minecraft mod scene exists largely in spite of the game developer, not due to it.

For what it's worth, I also consider the base "gameplay" pattern important, official "mod" tools: crafting, redstone, etc. The variety of things done with just those simple tools, no Java, rivals a lot of stuff done with "mods" to past games; don't discount it simply because it's done entirely within the ruleset of the "game" itself. Minecraft is this generation's ZZT.

I don't think Mojang ever tried to actively stop the mod community like, say, Rockstar did. I would say Minecraft does have modding support in the sense that the installation files are an open book, inviting unlimited modding opportunities for anyone who wants to tinker.

They never tried to stop it but they never fostered it either. It was just coincidentally easy to reverse engineer the code and install mods. But the interfaces were VERY brittle, and mods had very specific version requirements.

Official mod support (with an installer and an API) was on the dev roadmap but never materialized.

Don’t know about “open book” given Minecraft’s Java bytecode is obfuscated - mods rely on code deobfuscated by players.

If you're testing just how fun a game is, it's easier to get someone to try a Warcraft 3 'map' than install a whole new game, with a new interface, new art, etc to get used to.

I think the distribution networks and art assets still make it more effective than unity for testing game concepts. And that's what leads to games like Battle Royale and DOTA.

>it's easier to get someone to try a Warcraft 3 'map' than install a whole new game

It's also safer. Running executables (with full access to your user account) from random people on the internet is the quickest way to get pwned. Games with built-in mod support often sandbox any code within the mod so that it doesn't have unrestricted access to your machine. (Any game with automatic mod downloading upon server join better be doing this at least.) So it's both easier and safer to try out games (er, mods/maps) on random people's suggestions. (Same goes for browser-based games, since browsers sandbox all code in web pages.)

Oh right, I forgot to mention Twine, Ink, et al. The web browser really is seeing some cool games work. Even things like WebVR and Babylon.JS allowing small devs to explore VR concepts in the browser.

And the games without mod tools are easier to mod than ever because almost everyone is using either unity or unreal, and modding those engines is well understood.

Its just a sliding scale though isn't it? I mean it goes somehting like:

starting with most accessible:

Modders<->Unity Devs<->Unreal Devs<->Custom C++ engine devs

Maybe? I think the paths between such things are more maze-like and full of grues than a simple sliding scale. Though arguably even if it is "just" a sliding scale, the fact that there are more options on the scale between Modders and Custom C++ engine devs is still an interesting change over time. I remember when there was almost nothing but a impassable wall between Modders and Custom C++ engine devs.

Agree. It's a combination of faster hardware and more friendly software (unity etc). That's progress! Although some would not agree (see Steam and the fuss over the state of the store).